small bites, from an unusual plate

Tag Archives: Cows

I found this sweet-sad note from my father to Jeff. I don’t have Jeff’s original part of the email, but the subject reads, ‘Carnation Milk.’

From: Dad

Sent: Monday, May 27, 2002

To: Jeff & Jodi

Real funny! Keep them coming!

I really enjoyed your visit. I wish we could have spent more time doing things together that guys do. Maybe things will turn around someday for the both of us. Let’s keep the faith and try real hard.

Miss you already,

Dad (It’s not often that a guy has three dads)

P.S. Jodi, are you going to change your email address to “Korte.”

About the air horn:

There’d rarely been a night when Jeff hadn’t woken up at least once. He’d wander the house, have a snack, watch tv or get on the computer. I’d gotten used to that and barely noticed anymore.

one night in early June 2004, Jeff had decided that he did not want to possibly disturb Nannee by using the computer in the office room next to hers. Instead, he’d gone to the den and fallen asleep to the TV.

In the morning, Nannee let Jeff know she’s had a very rough night. She thought she might have been having a heart attack and called out to us repeatedly. At the other end of the house, we had not heard her. She insisted she felt fine that morning, and p’shawed the suggestion that she visit her doctor, saying it hadn’t been that long ago that she’d seen him.

It was Jeff’s idea to provide Nannee with an air horn. I wasn’t home when they tested it. As we went to bed, I worried that we might not hear it with our bedroom door closed. Jeff assured me, we’d hear it, but left the door open to ease my mind.

The next night, I heard the air horn. Jeff heard the air horn, and with the windows open on that cool June night, most of the neighborhood probably heard it to. I was already jolted half out of bed, when Jeff took off from his side, closest to the bedroom door.

He got there first and called back to me to call 911. Nannee went by ambulance to Bixby, then by ambulance to Toledo. The Bixby doctor was quite angry when he spoke to us following some tests. He ordered a stomach pump, curtly demanded to know who her doctor was and then left us in the curtain-divided emergency room.

When he came back, he was more subdued. Nannee and her doctor must have known her digestive system was failing. She hadn’t shared that with us. She had told us, though, that she didn’t want to die in a hospital.

You know, my Jeff was a patriot. He always removed his ever-present hat for the national anthem. He removed his hat and placed a hand over his heart for any flag passing by. He admired his friends in the service, had great respect for veterans, never missed a Memorial Day or 4th of July parade, and believed America was the greatest country in the world.

Jeff also had a wisdom to impart when anyone began discussing politics.

“It doesn’t matter who becomes president tonight,” he’d say. “When we all wake up tomorrow, the cows still gotta get milked.”

This self-proclaimed non-politicking was just a bit of Korte bluster mostly to offset his father’s very-politicking Korte bluster. His practical point was that things tend to stay the same and nothing drastic happens overnight after an election.

Jeff truly cared about his country, his state, his home. I’m sure he would have been horrified by this election, disheartened entirely. I’m afraid this election could very well turn our nation into a disaster tomorrow. I’ve been praying it doesn’t.

At this point, though, the only thing I can say for certain is Jeff’s truth still stands.